cleared the hurdles; after which, he had to fire his shots hurriedly, and
the last counted blank, for being outside the circle of the stated time.

So he was beaten. But a terrific uproar over the field proclaimed the
popular dissatisfaction. Presently there was a cleavage of the mob, and
behold a chase at the heels of the fellow to rival the very captain
himself for fleetness. He escaped, leaving his pole with the sheet
nailed to it, by way of flag, in proof of foul play; or a proof, as the
other side declared, of an innocently premature signalizing of the
captain's victory.

However that might be, he ran. Seeing him spin his legs at a hound's
pace, half a mile away, four countrymen attempted to stop him. All four
were laid on their backs in turn with stupefying celerity; and on rising
to their feet, and for the remainder of their natural lives, they swore
that no man but a Champion could have floored them so. This again may
have been due to the sturdy island pride of four good men knocked over by
one. We are unable to decide. Wickedness there was, the Dame says; and
she counsels the world to 'put and put together,' for, at any rate, 'a
partial elucidation of a most mysterious incident.' As to the wager-
money, the umpires dissented; a famous quarrel, that does not concern us
here, sprang out of the dispute; which was eventually, after great
disturbance 'of the country, referred to three leading sportsmen in the
metropolitan sphere, who pronounced the wager 'off,' being two to one.
Hence arose the dissatisfied third party, and the letters of this
minority to the newspapers, exciting, if not actually dividing, all
England for several months.

Now the month of December was the month of the Dame's mysterious
incident. From the date of January, as Madge Winch knew, Christopher